STAYING AFLOAT, ALL HANDS ON DECK

by Barbara Young

Enjoy the video The Library’s Three Graces of the Arts

Buoyant artists and art institutions of Miami and Miami Beach are offering a range of innovative experiences for pandemic and weather-weary art lovers. Virtual exhibitions and programs have dominated the activities for several months. Miami’s internationally lauded family collections – The Margulies Collection at the Warehouse, the Rubell Museum, and the de la Cruz Collection are opening with timed and ticketed attendance, social distancing, and always masks. The Patricia and Phillip Frost Museum at Florida International University, The Bass Museum, the Institute of Contemporary Art, the Pérez Art Museum Miami, Miami Dade College Museum of Art and Design, and the Lowe Museum – the University of Miami, as well as the Museum of Graffiti are receiving visitors while implementing safety precautions.

Clire Regans aka VantaBlack, Say Their Names: A Public Art Memorial Mural Project, detail, 2020. The artist created this powerful exterior mural at the Bakehouse Art Complex. She recently received Oolite Arts’ first Social Justice Award. Say Their Names is one of several exterior murals at the center. Photo by David Gary Lloyd Photography, courtesy of Bakehouse Art Complex.

Miami artists have often chosen to present their work out of doors and with our climate “outside” is the perfect venue. In the early 1970s, Purvis Young, inspired by the Wall of Respect in Chicago, covered the walls of Overtown’s Goodbread Alley with his paintings. Some forty years later Tony Goldman established the Wynwood Commercial galleries from LnS Gallery, Bernice Steinbaum Gallery, Emerson Dorsch Gallery, Fredric Snitzer Gallery, Nina Johnson, Mindy Solomon Gallery, Dot Fiftyone Gallery, Piero Atchugarry Gallery, Pan American Art Projects, N’Namdi Contemporary Fine Art, Spinello Projects, Tile Blush, to David Castillo Gallery as well as artist-run spaces and virtual sites are contending with the current Barbara Young Walls as an outdoor museum of international street art. There are numerous public murals and three dimensional works throughout our community. Many have been commissioned by Miami-Dade Art in Public Places Trust. Check their website to navigate.

Purvis Young, Goodbread Alley, detail, ca 1973. © George L. Niblack. With this exterior installation, Young gained attention of the community including Bernard Davis founder of the Miami Museum of Modern Art, (1959 - 1973). Image Goodbread Alley, courtesy Vasari Project, Special Collections & Archives, Miami-Dade Public Library System, Miami, FL.

miamidadepublicart.org situation with creativity and resilience. Dimensions Variable, Dimensions Variable, Warehouse 4726, Bridge Red Studios, Bridge Red Studios, under the bridge Art Space, Swampspace other stops in the Design District, Fountainhead Studios, and the Laundromat Art Space always surprise. Miami’s A.I.M Biennial is also online with site-specific concepts and publication.